It's Like a Disease
by DerbychickaLexzilla
Summary: After Sodapop is shipped off to Vietnam, Tulsa begins to change- all the color is drained out and everybody is acting strange. Ponyboy seems to be the only one who notices. But things are not always what they seem.


You know that moment, the one between dreams and consciousness? Well, I was there and I could feel the light of the sun upon my face and faintly hear the sound of a fly buzzing. Or, that's what I should have felt and heard... Actually, what really threw me off about the morning from the get-go was the lack of those things that moment between dreams and consciousness was over, I stretched and my eyes fluttered open. I closed them again and again. I rubbed my fists against my eyeballs until I saw fireworks behind my eyelids. And when I opened them again, the world remained the same.

All the color was gone. It was like the house was a coloring book which somebody had erased. I could see the black lines crisscrossing a pattern on the curtains. I could see the whitish grey of mine and Soda's bed. I looked at my hands and found the same color there. Like an old movie.

I was really starting to freak out, you know? And so I shook my head muttering to myself- a list of all the information I should know, in case I had forgotten; I am Ponyboy Curtis, I am Sixteen years old, my brothers are Darry and friends are Two-Bit Mathews and Steve Randle. I attend Will Rogers High School. And I muttered all the things I wished I could forget; My parents are dead. They died in a car accident years ago. My friends Johnny and Dally are dead. Bob is dead. Soda is away in Vietnam. Sodapop, my brother, is away in Vietnam… I felt the tears burning my eyes, but held them in. I knew that I had to find Darry and figure out what the hell was wrong with me or whatever was going on. I tugged my pants on over the boxers I had slept in and clumsily grasped for the doorknob. I was shaking like a leaf. Luckily, nobody was camping on our couch- I wouldn't want them to see me right now, looking like I was my old self again, young Ponyboy Curtis who had to be sheltered.

I didn't expect to find Darry in the kitchen, but I did. He was making scrambled eggs of all things… scrambled eggs. I was gettin' even jittier for some reason. I mean, all the fuckin' color was gone, the world was all thrown off its axis and here he was making eggs!

"Darry.." I stopped, rubbing my eyes. I didn't know what else to say, the only thing that wanted to come out was, "what the fuck is going on?" But Darry hated it when I cursed and I didn't feel like fighting so early in the morning. Darry turned to me, smiling as he extinguished the heat above the stove.

"Hey little buddy. You hungry? I made eggs."

My brow crinkled, and I knew that I had raised one of them high enough to reach my hairline, probably.

"I don't understand." I could feel an unnatural anger rising in my chest as Darry looked at me. His eyes which were usually so cold, with an occasional moment of softness in them, stared back into mine blankly. Sedately, almost like a farm animal ready for the slaughterhouse.

"What's wrong Ponyboy? Are you feeling sick?" Darry set the pan down on the counter and approached me, laying his hand across my forehead. His sedate expression had become quizzical. I couldn't take it anymore.

"No Darry, Damnit! I'm not goddamn sick." I knocked his hand from my face and backed up from him. My brother's face twisted hideously and his eyes filled with fury. I had never seen a person look like that- ever. At least not in real life. The next second, the expression was gone, and Darry's face was all back to normal.

"Ponyboy," he said, much too calmly for my tastes, "I think somebody needs to go back to sleep for awhile."

At this, I flipped, though not like before. I could feel the urgency and anger which had been culminating in my chest rise up like an orchestra-or like a dead man- depending on how sadistic you were.

"Darry why are you making eggs? I just don't understand why you would make eggs at this particular moment in time. Darry, all the fucking color is gone. Darry, I look like I belong in an old movie, what the hell has happened? And why are your eyes like that? And why don't you care that I'm goddamn fucking cursing to your fucking face?!" After the outburst, I knew the tears would come if I let them. I hadn't looked at Darry since the egg part. I had to look away as I yelled the rest because he had looked so docile and unrattled by the whole scene. Silence filled the room.

"I think you should go get some sleep. Go to your room for awhile and sleep."

And my mind went blank. I had to leave the kitchen because my whole world was all confused and Darry didn't seem to notice that all the color was gone. As I trudged back to the room, I noticed an old photograph of mom and dad. I had it memorized by heart- the pink of mom's cheeks, the deep brown of her eyes and hair. The sparkling of her earrings, a wedding present. My father and his blue eyes and his hair which looked like golden wheat out of the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. Now, the photograph was reduced to dark lines with a contrast of greyish white. Dull, just like my hands and Darry's face.

Bile rose in my throat and I puked up a watery substance into the toilet. I grasped the edges, contemplating everything that was going on. I wanted to cry so badly.

"Ponyboy, I told you to go to bed. I'll bring you some pills for the pain." That was Darry's only reaction to my retching in the toilet. I lay my head against the cool porcelain and let my head go blank for just a moment. And then, it was filled with complete clarity. I didn't need those pills, and I definitely didn't want them.

With my mind made up, I tiptoed out of the restroom, looking both ways for Darry. And then I hustled into my room. Shifting the curtains over, I unlatched the window, and lifting it, I crawled out.

What I really needed was to find Two-Bit or Steve. Somebody must know what the hell was happening.


End file.
